


a short after

by jaggedmountains



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Bus, Holding Hands, M/M, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 03:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19737436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaggedmountains/pseuds/jaggedmountains
Summary: "in this last week, facing down the absolute possibility of what he might lose, his inability to imagine has melted. He doesn’t want to go back. He wants to keep imagining."





	a short after

The bus is quiet. The stop name changes on the display, the bumps in the road shift them gently side to side, the fluorescent lighting is tiring on their already tired eyes. Aziraphale remembers the last time they were on a bus together, hiding behind papers, debriefing from their respective debriefs. The Antichrist had been five years old. This current world had been unthinkable. Crowley’s hair had been long. The future was a dread unknown and unformed, wrapped in a sense of impossibility- he doesn’t think they were able to imagine either way, the world ending or not. But in this last week, facing down the absolute possibility of what he might lose, his inability to imagine has melted. He doesn’t want to go back. He wants to keep imagining.  
Crowley is sitting against the window. He’s leaning back, arms crossed, face arranged in a way that makes Aziraphale think his eyes are shut under the glasses. Aziraphale is next to the aisle. He’s been trying to watch Crowley out of the corner of his eye. It feels very important, somehow, that he is watching Crowley. If he looks to the opposite side of the bus, he can sneakily watch Crowley’s full reflection in the window there. But that means turning away from him, which is something that feels even more important to avoid. So he looks out the window on their side of the bus instead, and just tries to look as though he’s interested in the passing signs and storefronts, instead of in beautifully reflected snake tattoos.  
Apparently he’s doing a bad job, because he’s only cocked his head at one food co-op and squinted at one turn off to a nature preserve when Crowley shifts, squints (presumably), at Aziraphale, and does some snakey, judgey, spine rearrangement. Well. He won’t bother, then. But he’s not quite ready, either. Aziraphale looks ahead and leans back, and after a second Crowley does too.  
The bus is quiet. The stop name changes. Aziraphale thinks, _I’ve been cruel to him. No,_ it’s _been cruel to him, this long time I’ve taken to soften._ He thinks, _I’m so glad I get to make it up to him._ He reaches out and takes Crowley’s hand.  
It’s a process. The problem is that Crowley’s arms are crossed, left over right, so his left hand, which is the one that Aziraphale would like to hold with his right, is actually in the worst place possible for a casual taking. First Aziraphale tugs on Crowley’s arms, which uncross easily. Crowley’s eyebrows and shoulders both go up. Then Aziraphale extracts Crowley’s hand, wraps his own around it, and settles their hands on the seat between them. Crowley keeps shifting all his joints, like this is the middle of a scene, like it’s hand-taking for a purpose, for a spell, to confirm an arrangement. Aziraphale gives him a smile to let him know that the hand-taking is the purpose, and also just to look at him again, and Crowley goes very, very still. His eyes are fixed clearly and directly on Aziraphale’s face, and he’s staring so hard Aziraphale thinks he might accidentally stop existing as anything but an optical network. It’s actually a nice feeling, being so thoroughly _watched_ , but Aziraphale wouldn’t know how to hold hands with an optical network, so he takes pity.  
“Is this alright?” he asks, “I thought it was quite time I took _some_ initiative”.  
Crowley looks like he’s facing down the best thing that’s ever happened to him, or possibly the worst, but certainly the least likely. That breaks Aziraphale’s heart a little. He moves his eyebrows in what he hopes is a gentle, questioning way, and Crowley restarts all at once.  
“Yes,” he says. “Quite, very, alright, I, I didn’t think you’d. Did you know. You surprised me, so much at the beginning, and then now, and all the time in between I’d sometimes think, ‘he’d never, would he?’ But you do, you _do_ ”.  
His body’s been tensing as he speaks, condensing and coiling inward with nervous energy, so Aziraphale gives his hand a little squeeze and watches Crowley breathe out, sink back into the seat. Their hands rest on the seat between them. It feels so natural. It feels like they’ve done something absolutely correct, for once. There’s a huge exhaustion, a huge relief within and among them.  
“I do”, says Aziraphale.


End file.
